Chapter 4: Needle in a Haystack
The lift lumbered upward, groaning slowly along on its rusted cables. The Sith
troopers onboard discussed a murder in the Undercity below.
"It's just another outcast. They die all the time."
"This one was shot. That's not normal."
"He's right. I think one of the fugitives killed him."
"Just another outcast. It's no concern of ours."
"Maybe we should report it?"
"You know how much the higher-ups hate to be bothered."
"It might be important. We should tell someone."
The patrol captain interrupted, annoyed.
"I am in charge, in case you've forgotten, and if I say it's of no concern, then it is of no concern. Understood?"
The lift screeched to a halt, and the doors labored to open into the Lower City. The troopers stopped, staring at the sight that greeted them. A Sith sentry lay face down in a pool of her own blood, dark crimson splattered over her chrome armor. She had been shot in the head… near point blank range. Stabbed too… more than once, it looked like, through the joints in her armor. After a while, one of the men spoke.
"Still 'none of our concern'?"
The captain swallowed.
"Contact the Governor."
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Trask turned the body over, searching for blaster wounds or vibroblade cuts… anything that might give some clue as to how the Bothan died. He straightened up, sighing. There was nothing. Well… there was the smell, but it seemed like everything on this planet gave off a pungent odor.
"I take it you didn't find anything either?" Carth had been examining the other two bodies.
"Not a scratch."
Carth stood up, looking over the scene.
"Well, something killed them. You don't think… You don't think maybe there's a dark Jedi running around nearby, do you? I've heard they can do things like this."
Trask began searching the Bothan's pockets.
"If there is, we came this close to being ass-dust." Trask said, using two of his fingers to indicate a very small margin of space.
Carth looked solemnly upwards towards the lift leading into the Upper City.
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"Alright, you're clear. Once the lift gets back, you can head on down."
Captain Mesal motioned Davik's men through to the lift, passing a virtual gauntlet of blaster turrets and armored troopers as they did. Ever since that soldier… Vera something… ever since that soldier was killed, the governor had tightened security around the Undercity lift twenty-fold. Something… Something had the higher-ups jumpy. It wasn't the murder… the Sith had lost more than their share of men to those damn swoop gangs before… No… something else was going on. Mesal turned as the lift doors opened up, and the Undercity patrol disembarked. As they did, Davik's men, lead by that brute of a Mandalorian, no less, stepped inside to take the patrol's place. Mesal didn't wait for his men to address him.
"Well? What have you found out? Or did you spend all that time keeping some lonely outcast girls company?"
"We searched the pod. Any survivors were long gone by the time we got there. There… there were some bodies by the pod's exit hatch... may have been a firefight. We talked to some of the outcasts about it… they said there was a large group of Vulkars meandering around down there a good hour or so ago."
The captain raised an eyebrow of disbelief as the lift in front of him headed down.
"Vulkars? You mean that swoop gang? The Undercity is a restricted area! They're not authorized to be down there! How did they manage to…?"
Mesal stopped, looking down at the crimson stain covering the floor.
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Bastila stirred painfully. The cold, iron grating beneath her was cutting hexes into her back. She rolled slowly onto her side. The world around her was a blurred mix of browns and grays, shifting and swirling over each other. She groaned as a burning jolt of pain shot through her skull. She must have hit her head when the pod crashed… but… how long had she been out? Bastila jerked her head instinctively, and painfully, upward as a small hand was laid on her shoulder.
"Hey there… are you okay? Your pod took quite the nosedive."
Bastila squinted at the figure through her pain, but the unshapely swirl of colors refused to correct themselves.
"Yes… I-I'm fine. Who… are you? What's going on?"
The voice responded, distant… muffled over the pounding of her head, but Bastila could almost swear it belonged to a child.
"My name's Mission Vao. This big guy here, he's my best friend Zaalbar. Your pod crashed into the Undercity while we were down there exploring. I guess that means you were part of the big space-battle, huh? Anyway, after it crashed, we…
Bastila interrupted the child.
"What about…" Bastila paused, pushing the pain aside to allow her mind a chance to grasp the situation.
"There was another onboard… in the pod… with me. Where… where is he now?"
Bastila braced herself, ready for the worst.
She was not disappointed.
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Revan stood in wonder, watching the wave of humanity swarm around him. Bodies. Hundreds of thousands of living, breathing bodies walked blindly past him from either direction completely ignorant of who stood in their midst's. Nobody bowed. Nobody groveled. Nobody begged for mercy. Revan twisted his head around, still amazed. Nobody gave him a second glance. Most didn't even look at him one. Those few that did gave him looks not of terror, but rather mild disapproval.
He began to move south, towards a nearly empty stretch of skyway, still amazed at the lack of attention he was attracting. As he walked, Revan went over his mental checklist. So far, his plans for Malak and the Republic all required one critical root factor, the sole thing in the galaxy more powerful than the force.
Credits.
It was also the one thing Revan currently lacked. His brisk stride stopped as he saw a sign hung outside the local cantina.
-Taris Dueling Ring-
Become the Taris Duel Champion!
-Cash Reward for all Victories-
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Jared kicked the Bothan's body onto its back. Just like the others. A Vulkar, badly burned, still carrying all his equipment. Something weird was going on here.
"Canderous, something's wrong here. I don't like it."
"That's too bad, since you're going to be down here for a while. Now see if you guys can manage to do something right for once and watch for Rakgouls while I search the pod, alright?"
Canderous climbed up the ramp as Davik's men scurried to their lookout positions. He sighed inwardly. This whole thing was a bad idea. The men were too green for this, and he couldn't baby-sit them all.
The inside of the pod was warmer than the Undercity outside. Whoever had been here wasn't too far gone, at least. No equipment or supplies to speak of. The fugitives would have taken those with them, which meant they would well equipped, and given the pile of Vulkars outside, they were at least halfway capable fighters.
Canderous shook his head.
There was no way this salvage mission was going to work unless Davik freed up some more experienced lackeys.
Canderous turned to leave the pod when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught something glimmer under the pilot's chair. Curious, he slipped the heavy repeater off his shoulders, and set it roughly on the ground. He lay down next to the pilot's chair, and, stretching mightily, reached his arm underneath, groping around blindly for whatever it was he had seen a few moments before. After a brief while of searching, his fingers clasped tightly around a cool, steel cylinder.
